Deep, Dark, and Dank
by Nine Days a Queen
Summary: Eugenides contemplates his motivations in Sounis's prison. - Tag-fic to The Thief.


**Title: Deep, Dark, and Dank**

**Author: ninedaysaqueen **

**Beta: openedlocket – Rose are red, violets are blue, you are a sweet beta of much cool!**

**Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of **_**The Thief**_**, **_**The Queen of Attolia**_**, **_**The King of Attolia**_**, **_**A Conspiracy of Kings**_**, nor of any characters, locations, and elephants contained within. All rights of the **_**Queen's Thief**_** series belong exclusively to Megan Whalen Turner and her respective publishers.**

**Spoilers: Book 1 only.**

**Rating: PG/K+ - For some very minor swearing. You know how Gen is...**

**Genre: Drama/Fluff/Humor**

**Word Count: 800 (approximate) - Excluding author's notes.**

**Summary: Eugenides contemplates his motivations in Sounis's prison. - Tag-fic to **_**The Thief**_**.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p>He was an idiot.<p>

His plans, which had seemed so straightforward and simple when he'd formed them in the comfort of his study (a warm fire across the room and dinner waiting on his desk), were now looking remarkably less so chained to a wall and sleeping on a stone bench. A few months in a deep, dark, dank hole in the ground with bad food and lice in his hair? What of it? _Bah._

Idiot indeed.

And who exactly _was _the king of Sounis and his passel of fools to treat him like this? Didn't the magus understand that he was waiting for the old stiff to have a brilliant idea that he himself had put there? He should have been down here for no more than a few days; that's how brilliant his plans were. So what if they involved purposefully getting himself thrown in Sounis's dungeon with the tax evaders, the shady merchants, and the rest of the riffraff? That was exactly why no one would suspect a thing!

_Ugh._

He should have idiot scripted to his forehead as a warning to the world and as precautionary device to prevent himself from getting tangled in anymore stupid plots.

_All successful plans are founded on some basic elements of stupidity._ That proved it. His grandfather had been _mad_.

Eugenides sighed, and shifted on his stone bench, so parts of his body that were being uncomfortably rubbed were exchanged for other parts, so those too did not feel left out of the uncomfortableness. Soon, he would be treated to his twice daily meal of burnt porridge and tepid water, then he might coax the cuffs off his wrists and stretch his ligaments. The chains, which had been intended to harshen his punishment, actually served as his only means of entertainment in the spartan cell. Of course, learning to move soundlessly despite heavy, iron cuffs was only a useful skill in theory, as he did not see himself wandering through anyone's bedchamber dragging a ball and chain.

He snorted at his own roundabout method of deduction. Gods... he was _bored, _and very much alone with his own thoughts and memories. Apparently, the consequence of having nothing in front of you to distract yourself with was a great deal of thinking and self-examination.

_Was anyone worried about him? _

_Would his plans ever come to fruition?_

_Would he succeed before his queen was delivered to the marriage altar, bound and gagged by Sounis's threats?_

Eugenides groaned and shifted again. He didn't want to think about Sounis or any of the idiot's dimwitted conspiracies to steal his country and queen. Just as there was nothing with which to distract himself from his swirling thoughts of worry and concern, there was also nothing in the vicinity to take out his anger on.

_Damn._

Either way... no matter what came of his mad ideas and stupid plans, as long as he was alive, there was still hope for him to do _something._ To stop the threats against his country _somehow_.

_Somehow, someway... _

At least, that's what he thought he was doing down here in this hole. It was probably the most convoluted, ridiculous, and self-mutilating somehow, someways anyone had ever thought of but hey... Give him credit for originality.

He was doing it again.

At the heart of the matter (at the heart of reality, one might say), he was running from his own reasons for being stuck down here – his true motivations for taking his oh-so-clever plans this far.

He was trying to prove himself.

Years of sarcastic retorts, barbed taunts, and a general attitude of _why-should-I-care_ had gotten him absolutely no where, hadn't it? He still wanted to be accepted, still wanted to be praised for his cleverness, still wanted his father to look at him with something other than disappointment.

_Humph... _

Perhaps it was all their fault in the end... Or his mother's and grandfather's, whom he missed so much and loved so dearly, that he wanted to see proud. Smiling down on him from the afterlife and probably snickering while they were at it. The thought brought a smile to his own face.

He could _do_ this.

If not for himself or even his country, for them in their memory. For the Thief. For the station and the responsibilities that had gone ignored and undervalued for generations. That's what he would prove – the altar of Eugenides; the place his family held in Eddis's royal machinations would not and could not be ignored.

Not while he was still around.

But first...

He had to get the hell out of this dungeon.

"Dinner!" called a guard, with a bang against the thick bars. _Erg, kill me now..._ groaned Eugenides, inwardly, at the rancid smell of his meal.

Idiot indeed. Someone, somewhere was _definitely_ laughing at him.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading,<strong>

**ninedaysaqueen**


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